Galaxy Quest: Return to the Void
by Patupi
Summary: One year on the Crew of Galaxy Quest get the chance to venture into space once more, this time with some Earth assistants from an organisation that deals with aliens. Can they survive working with their military counterparts? Will they meet back up with Malthazar? Can Alex avoid killing Jason for bad acting? All will be revealed.
1. Chapter 1

"Aaand CUT!" yelled the director.

With a sigh the cast and crew (in more ways than one) of the NTE Protector relaxed once more.

"Tell me that take was acceptable?" Alex said raising his eyebrows emphatically.

"Daney babey! Don't worry, we'll take that slip right out in editing no trouble." Alexander Dane's eyes focused to slits at this, but he fumed in silence. "OK people, that's a wrap, and I'm outa here."

With a familiar flurry the director dashed out with barely another word and most of the cast's eyes followed his departure with resignation.

"What do you think?" Jason muttered to Gwen as she pulled bits of Styrofoam 'debris' from her hair. "Natasha or Betty this week?"

"Jason, you're so out of touch. I'm sure it's a very essential business brothel... I mean meeting that he has to attend."

"Aaah, why didn't I think of that?"

A slap on his shoulder from his rib headed 'alien' cast member jolted Jason.

"Do you really want me to answer that Jason?" Alex said.

With a chuckle Jason slapped Alex on the back as they joined the other crew heading out to their respective rooms to change out of costume.

"Excuse me Mr Nesmith?"

Jason turned to see a short man in a rather worn tweed jacket.

"How did you get in here? Look autographs are on Tuesday if you could..."

"Mr Nesmith?" The man interrupted "I'm not a 'fanboy' or Questar or whatever."

"Questerion. It's pronounced Questerion Mr...?"

"Lang. Mr Obidia Lang. Call me Obby."

"Oookay. So... Obby... to what do we owe the pleasure?" Jason said with a practiced grin.

'Obby' looked around, and waited while the everyone except Jason, Alex and Gwen had left the set. Jason found that odd in itself. Why wasn't someone clearing up the set like they usually did?

"Mr Nesmith, I represent the Atlas Foundation and we wish to hire your crew."

"Look, we're in syndication right now and have some serious deadlines. I'm afraid I don't think we can fit in any specials at the moment."

Mr Lang smiled and straightened his short black hair idly.

"I think you might be interested in my offer Jason. Malthazar seemed to think you were our best bet so..."

"Malthazar?" Jason said, all humor lost from his voice as his eyes locked with Mr Lang  
"Who the hell are you and where are you from?"

"Please, trust me I am human, mostly. Myself and the Foundation have been dealing with things along the lines of your run in with Sarris, though purely on Earth, for decades. Perhaps we should gather the 'cast' together and talk a little more informally? I'd like to see the reception room on the Command Section if you don't mind?"

The three cast glanced askance at each other for a couple of seconds before Jason shrugged.

"OK, Obby. Let's go 'on-set'."

Mr Lang smiled again and Jason got the distinct impression he knew all too well that the Command Section was NOT a set.

After a few minutes Obby and the real command crew of the NTE Protector (minus Laliari) sat around the oval table in the reception room. Tommy was just sitting down, arguing quietly with Alex.

"He's what? Oh come on, this is just some sort of Questerion thing right?"

"Trust me, this is more than that. Though where it's going...?" and Alex shrugged.

Once they were all seated Obby rested his elbows on the table.

"Thank you for meeting me like this. I know this is a little odd, but I felt secrecy was important. Your staff has gone home early by the way." he held up a hand at the anxious looks around the table. "No, nothing untoward going on. I just wanted to be sure no-one would butt in on this meeting. Gentlemen and Lady, I am here to offer you the command of the next Protector."

The stunned looks around the table lasted for several seconds.

"You have got to be kidding!" Alex Dane said pushing back in his chair. "We're ACTORS, not military! What, you expect us to beat the xenoforms of Belox 9 by giving a rendition of episode 8? Give me strength!"

"Wait up a minute Alex." Jason said, not noticing the annoyed look from Alex. "Obby. First, what do you mean by 'the next Protector'?"

Mr Land stood up and pulled out a small crystal from his pocket and handed it to Gwen.

"If you could get the computer to display the file on that Ms Demarco?"

Gwen looked at Jason, Jason raised an eyebrow and nodded.

"Computer, display file from memory crystal in slot 72." she said, putting the crystal in a slot on the table.

A hologram appeared above the table, solid looking, but looking somehow... fake. It seems the Thermians had also copied the special effects from the original series which employed painted overlays. The ship looked impressive, but did not resemble the Protector in any way. It looked more like a cross between a naval warship and a NASA space station with eight huge cylindrical looking engines on the rear. More than anything it reminded Jason of an office block.

"This is our current ship design, and no this is not the Protector. This is the AFS Dauntless. It is an in-system defense vessel we use to guard Earth, one of three. Her sister ships are the Indefatigable and the Ajax, but the Ajax is incomplete at present. We plan on using most of the Ajax's internal components already built, combined with items made from the emergency Fabricators on your Command Section and items that we can assemble ourselves to your specs. Basically we plan to build this. Image two Gwen?"

"Computer, display image two."

The display switched to an accurate rendition of the NTE Protector. Mr Lang walked around the table behind Fred Kwang to get close to the hologram and reached out.

"These specs are incomplete, read from your... ah, more public archives. We cracked your human built computers and I believe you transferred some files there? Anyway, if you consent to giving us your technical specs we should be able to complete this ship, our first trans-light craft, though we'll have to use your Command Section as several components here we can't reproduce at all. We've had some luck duplicating the different Particle Cannons but had to go with a fusion reactor rather than a Beryllium Sphere..."

"Wait wait wait a minute!" Jason said standing up. "You need our design to build this thing? That's why you need us to crew it? A trade?"

Mr Lang shook his head.

"No Mr Nesmith. Frankly the Foundation Council would much rather they assembled their own crew on an entirely military basis and simply pay you for the rights to use the data you have in your computers, even if that meant using our own equipment to build the bridge computer and sensor systems. Our factories most certainly are not up to Thermian standards in that matter. Honestly without the assistance of your Fabricators lots of small details on the ship would be vastly inferior to the vessel you flew. The idea to use you as the command crew for the new ship was mine. Perhaps I'd better go over some history of the Foundation? That may help explain things a little better."

"We were founded in England in 1919 to look into a large number of unidentified airships. Yes, back then the ones we got looked like zeppelins if you can believe that. The Foundation was set up separately from the government for several reasons; funding (we were supposed to at least partly find funding in the private sector), deniability if something went wrong, and of course privacy. We wanted all that 'weird' stuff away from normal government channels. Oh those were the days." Mr Lang blinked for a moment and Jason and Alex gave each other odd looks while he continued.

"At first it looked quite good. We identified many different vessels, realized they definitely were not from Earth and had even started classifying them into categories, though we had no communication with any of them. Then in 1922 the incidents slowed, finally stopping entirely in February 1923. Looking back the incidents seemed to have risen slowly over the nineteenth century peaking by about 1900 then slowly falling. Soon we found out why."

"Wait a minute." Jason interrupted "Flying saucers stopped in the twenties? What about Roswell? All the 1950's saucer stuff?"

"Please let me tell this my way. I'll get to all that in time. Where was I? Oh yes. The Al'thu-Sval. We later found that the other races that were looking Earth over at that time were basically scared off by the Al'thu-Sval. Basically they're Space Vampires."

"Oh good grief!" Alex groaned, throwing his hands in the air. "Surely you could come up with something better than that! That could have come right out of one of our old episodes!"

"I don't think we actually had any space vampires?" Guy Fleegman said cautiously "Although the G'donk makeup sort of looked a little like a reptilian vampire? Maybe."

"Reptilian vampire?" Jason said "What have you been smoking? I nearly made love to one of those G'donk! Er, Commander Taggart did I mean."

"Gentlemen!" Mr Lang said, banging on the table. "Look I know this is hard to believe, but if you asked someone out there to believe that you lot, the actors on a TV scifi show, had just saved an alien race from destruction, a race that mimicked your own TV show to save themselves from sociological and cultural decline... would you believe it?"

He glanced slowly around the table as the crew settled down once more.

"Thank you. Well, in August 1923 they arrived. We had agents across all of the then British Empire and got some news of several incidents, sightings mostly, of a single, small, unknown 'airship' that moved in a similar impossibly fast fashion as previous UFOs had. It was described as spherical, dull silver and featureless. We thought that aliens had been leaving our world, and now were being proved wrong. We started to rapidly organize a meeting to attempt to greet these newcomers to our world. Thankfully we did not get that organized in time. Our organization was terribly naive back then. On August '23 the Sval ship found an ocean going vessel in the Atlantic that it found interesting. Later examination of their records show they believed it to be some kind of local transport and were considering hauling people off it for dissection... shortly before the HMS Indefatigable fired off a broadside of their main guns at it."

"They mistook a warship for a transport?" Fred asked, grinning.

"Yes, they were incredibly arrogant and naturally didn't think anything this primitive world could throw at them would even dent them, thus did not engage their Electron armor. Six 10" armor piercing incendiary shells smashed most of their engineering section away and the wreck plunged into the Atlantic. It stayed afloat for a few minutes and some of the crew did get off. The Indefatigable picked up one of the crew and their marines had a terrible time restraining him, despite him being half drowned. The others swam ashore, or simply drifted ashore unconscious and waited till their bodies repaired themselves. They are a very hardy species."

Mr Lang walked around the table as he spoke and now paused directly opposite Jason.

"It took us a total of seven years to finally catch all of the crew, and at great cost to our agents... myself included."

Jason glanced back and forth from Fred to Obby.

"You... you were one of those agents? You seem a little spry for a Ninety year old?"

"Hundred and fifteen actually, and yes I had a run in with one of the Sval that left me permanently scarred. No, in case you were wondering they do not bite you to make you a vampire. They mostly seem to drain energy from their victims by simply gabbing hold of you and not letting go. However we did later learn that they had a technological means to turn other sentients into their servants. They had lost most of their equipment and were testing locally built equivalents (most of our early hardware was based on salvaged versions of their stuff) and tested some of their systems on me when they captured me. At the time we thought possibly an effort to make new slaves out of humans. It was, of course, based on their biology and the results were... unpleasant, and needless to say I did not turn into their slave."

Obby coughed slightly, fingering his collar before continuing.

"Anyway, that is old news. The Sval, as I said, had scared away most of the other races nearby. They were fairly advanced and the rough equivalent of mobsters in the galactic community. Once we dealt with the remains of their crew we pretty much had the Earth to ourselves once more. Naturally by this time we had amassed a large amount of advanced technology, small stuff the Sval had salvaged from their craft before swimming away, as well as things they built here on Earth, and our connection with the British government was... somewhat distant. Frankly those in power that did know about us had either left their jobs or died and it was a simple matter to sever ties with England completely and go independent. You see the Foundation had decided that no single government on Earth should hold such power as we were amassing. The following years of World War Two pretty much proved that to us. We aided the allies a little here and there, (not as much as I would have liked) but mostly held back. You might gather that the Foundation has a somewhat separatist view of themselves, but their goal is still primarily the defense of Earth from aliens."

At this Lang paused, seemingly gauging the response to his speech.

"OK, and then in the fifties?"

"Well, Once other races started probing this area of space and weren't repulsed by the Sval they began investigating once more. We're aren't sure if there were more Sval ships in the neighborhood apart from the one that crashed, but no more were seen after that. Perhaps they simply assumed we were too much of a risk and moved on? Anyway, governments around the globe began to set up organizations of their own to find out about the new aliens turning up, Project Blue Book etc, but the Atlas Foundation had a head start and had the captured Sval equipment. We basically ran rings around them, still do. We don't affiliate ourselves with any government but have built two space warships to defend the Earth and were building a third when we learned of the Thermian's visit. Their means of transport eluded us unfortunately or we might have been able to help out, but in the last month we have deciphered the encoding of your vox's and made contact with Malthazar." At Jason's worried look he held his hands up, smiling "Don't worry! We didn't break your little secret. They still think the NSEA is real etc. Though the Foundation wanted to be more open with them I persuaded them otherwise. We needed the Thermian's help, but they have not been as forthcoming as I might like. It seems they are leaving this area of space and are looking for a safer place to live. Can't say I blame them frankly."

Leaning over the table Mr Lang stared at Jason.

"And this brings us back to you. Malthazar seems willing to share intel on the local area, but his recent experience with other races has left him... unwilling to trust us without knowing more. One thing we would like you to do is contact him and ask for data on the various races nearby and possible threat levels. We think he will trust you. We don't want to run into another Sarris out there on our first mission!"

"_Our_first mission, right?" Jason said pointedly.

"I would hope so, yes. Look, I'll be frank with you. The Foundation Council is not happy with this but I have a great deal of sway there and I'm forcing the issue." From the way Obidia paused Jason got the feeling he was leaving a lot out. Not comforting! "But the only way they'll let you command the Protector 3 is... with assistants."

Alex winced and glanced at Jason as he spoke.

"These assistants, would they perchance be the original crew your council wanted to run the ship?"

Mr Lang stood back up and his expression became more serious.

"Actually, yes."

"And, hypothetically, would these crew, oh I don't know... be actually trained to run the ship?" Alex continued.

"Look, Mr Dane. I'm aware that you are actors and not starship personnel, but you have already proven that you work well together, can cope with the unknown well, and have experience with the technology involved. Frankly there is another issue. Your 'assistants' are mostly military in background from all across the globe but are not... well versed outside military matters. I'm worried that no-one on the proposed crew... I mean your assistants, has any diplomacy skills, is interested at all in relating peacefully with beings they might meet, or has much in the way of background in science fiction either. Our history with aliens has been a rather violent one in which we not only have been barely holding our own, but also desperate to not let the public in on it for fear of making a mass panic."

"You want us," Alex said, staring out of the corner of his eye at Jason "to be diplomats? You don't suppose you could actually get someone trained in that? Maybe... not actors?"

Hands slammed to the table and everyone jumped.

"OK, let me lay this on the line for you. This is my last chance to derail what I believe is the Council's worst mistake in the Foundation's history. I've used every last favor I have to get you lot to be in charge of the ship. This is the only chance I have. Do you accept?"

"Hey, I'm in." Fred said, popping an M&M in his mouth.

Jason looked around the table, first at Gwen.

"I have been working on the computer." she said slowly, pondering for a moment longer. "OK, I'll help."

His gaze fell on Tommy.

"So, I guess I'll be working with some hot shot NASA pilot? I can live with that."

Then on Guy.

"Who'll be my... assistant? A marine?" he said, but his nervous expression got more self conscious as he glanced around at the others. "Oh come on. I'm no soldier!"

"You're a security officer," Jason put it, "Besides, I've seen you practicing with the Nebulizer pistols, you probably could show the guy a thing or two."

"Just as long as this doesn't end up as a flashback episode." Guy said tiredly. "I hate flashback episodes!"

All eyes then landed on Alex.

"I can't be a scientist! I'm schooled in drama, not physics!"

"But Alex, Lazarus was more than just a science officer, he acted as our ambassador with aliens in... a lot of situations" Gwen winced, Thankfully out of sight of Alex "and besides, you know that science console pretty well by now."

"Glorified sensor tech?" He muttered, then continued more loudly. "For god's sake Jason, I am not wearing this annoying headpiece for a damn five year mission!"

Alex grimaced, lurching out of his seat and leaning over Jason.

"Well, I think, even if we are dealing with Malthazar... we can..." Jason looked pleadingly at Gwen.

"Mr Lang, how soon will we have to board the Protector 3?" Gwen asked.

"If everything goes as predicted and your Fabricators help as I hope, then probably about two months."

"Fine, I think we can assume Malthazar is still watching the show, so all we have to do is introduce a plot device, right? Something happens to Lazarus to... make him look more human?"

"Yeah!" Jason said, picking up from Gwen. "Some sort of anomaly, you fight a human rebel or something, and cast him into the anomaly but get caught yourself... then blend with him. It could work?"

"And I won't have to eat beetles?"

Gwen and Jason shake their heads.

"I'm sure more human tastes can be worked into the story line."

Alex slowly moved his gaze nervously around the table.

"We're seriously going to do this?" He said, finally ending up looking at Jason. "You know what happened last time. We nearly died."

"But this time we'll have guys who have been in space helping. Come on Alex, it'll be great!"


	2. Chapter 2

"Hey Elle." Fred said, smiling wistfully as he entered the crowded engineering deck.

He glanced up and ducked before hitting his head this time. The 'deck' was basically a crawlspace under the bridge.

"Hello tech sergeant Chen. It is good to see you." Laliari said, smiling distantly.

"It's Fred Elle. Try to remember." He said, still attempting to get her to call him by his real name. "So, Elle. I have some... friends, who want to, you know, mess around in here. That OK?"

Laliari blinked.

"They wish to mess around with us?"

Fred's eyes slowly drifted upwards, defocussing into the distance, a light smile crossing his face briefly.

"Um, another time maybe. Right now they want to, you know, see how things work. Machinery etcetera. Learn some stuff."

"This is cadet training?" she said.

"Um, OK... cadet training. Sure. Maybe we can, show them the ionic recali.. recalci... Those purple things. You know the stuff that makes things."

"The Ionic Reclamators? Of course tech sergeant Chen. I will explain what I can to your cadets."

Fred sighed, forgoing another attempt at getting his real name out of her. Maybe one day.

"Yeah, well, I think they'll be around tomorrow, or something. I'll let you know."

"This will be ready for tomorrow's recreation." Laliari said, changing the subject and waving up at the conduits she had been working on. "They will now project numerous carbonic arcs and incendiary sparks that are visually impressive but pose no risk to crew members. Is that sufficient?"

"Yeah, the bridge crew like a little spectacle."

* * *

Walking out in the sunshine, sunglasses on, Jason clicked his key fob and grinned. Yeah, Mercedes C class! Oh it was good to have money again!

"Jason, JASON!"

Tiredly Jason closed his eyes. This wasn't going to be good. He fixed a smile on his face and turned around as Alex came to a halt, puffing as he leaned on Jason's car.

"Hi Alex, how's it going?"

Alex merely fixed a stare back at him.

"Jason, tell me this is some sort of prank. You can't be serious about it."

"Hey, you agreed as long as you ditch the forehead thing." Jason quipped back, peering over his glasses at Alex.

"But this is real. We could get killed!... Again!"

"Uuuuh, I think you can only do that once Alex."

"You know what I mean! God you can be so annoying sometimes!" Alex drew a breath and managed to calm himself. "Look, we can just give them the machinery, let their people man the ship. We don't have to do this!"

Jason sighed and placed a hand on Alex's shoulder, staring fixedly into his eyes.

"Yes, we do. You know the motto. 'Never give up, never surrender!' "

"It's a motto on the show, not real life. We've done that once. Fine, we lived through it, now please will you not throw us back into the fire again?"

"No can do Alex. Papers already signed."

"What? Since when? Wait, I didn't sign anything for this?"

"Uh, yeah, you did. Those slips to do with tomorrows shoot. Well, lets say something got slid in there hmm?" Seeing the glare of anger swelling on Alex's face Jason quickly continued "Don't worry, it's just a quick trip to see Malthazar. Shake down cruise, bit of a flight, teach the new guys our tricks, some chatting and we come home. No trouble!"

"Jason, this is ridiculous. Have you stopped to ponder why this Obidia wants actors on his ship? I don't believe for a moment it's just to oust the military personnel. There has to be a hidden motive behind this!"

"Alex, you're starting to sound like Guy. Conspiracies don't lay around every corner. Look, I've gotta go. See you tomorrow. Don't worry, we'll get rid of the ridges, promise." He said, sliding into his car and shutting the door.

Alex fumed, standing there as Jason waved, then revved the car up and drove off.

"AND NO BUGS! I'M NOT EATING ANY BUGS!" he yelled after him. "Damned idiot."

* * *

"Fire blue particle cannons!" 'Captain Taggart' said as the stage shook, him leaning forward in his chair, gripping the arm rests.

"They're still coming." Dr Lazarus said calmly. "Our plasma armor is weakening. Forty percent." The stage shook again. "Thirty percent. The odds are not in our favor commander."

On the view screen an ugly ship of multiple lumps and bumps, almost looking organic, screamed towards them, spitting energy weapons fire and missiles. Lt Madison looked anxiously at Taggart before speaking up.

"Computer, status of Protector."

"Minor hull damage in sectors E through J, deck seven. Stress overload on primary magnetic cohesion axes."

Lt Madison shook her head.

"It's bad, but so far no hull breaches at least Commander."

Another shake of the set as the 'ship' was hit once more, making the crew hold on to keep their balance. Sparks blew on a panel by the wall, Laliari's handiwork spewing harmless pyrotechnics over Lazarus. Flinching, but never wavering in his duty, he continued monitoring the systems. Commander Taggart turned back to him seriously.

"Dr Lazarus, We've gotta be able to breach their armor. Try tuning the cannons again."

"I'm afraid it's no good captain. They're blocking our sensors. I can't locate their armor frequency."

Chief Ingersol cocked his head then ran over to Lazarus' console.

"Wait, armor frequency? When we boarded them before they had their defense panels lit, just before they noticed us."

"Can you recall the exact number?" Lazarus said, staring intently at Ingersol.

Gus concentrated for a moment, staring off into space.

"They switched the panel off pretty quick... I... think so. 592... 4 point...27. Yeah, 27, I'm sure of it!"

Lazarus started typing the numbers in, then grimaced.

"Commander, the frequency is beyond the limit of our particle cannons. I'll have to go to engineering and retrofit a Ionic Lancer projectile."

Commander Taggart nodded, focused on the screen.

"Go, make it quick Lazarus. Lt Laredo, see if you can pull us away. Go for defensive maneuver MJ12"

"Yes sir commander!" Laredo replied with a grin, and suddenly the crew was thrown around again as she ship spun and jinked.

"We've got to give Lazarus enough time!" Taggart said... as the camera closed in on his face.

"Aaaand cut! OK, break for an hour then we'll do the engineering scene." The director said, then turned towards Alex. "Daney baby, you're doing great! Now remember, you've gotta increase the tension, build it right to the moment when the bad guys digitize you off the ship. It's gotta throw the viewer. Coming right out of left field. Just when everyone thinks you've won."

Alex rolled his eyes, but just nodded and smiled acidly. Slowly the rest of the film crew left the set, most of the cast congregating in corner of the room.

"So, everyone been practicing?" Jason said when they were alone.

"Oh hell yeah!" Tommy said "Pedal to the metal!" He stopped as the rest of the crew stared at him. "I mean the flying thing, not the script. Look I'm taking flying lessons out there too. In a Cessna!"

"Which of course is a perfect way to train to fly a spaceship." Alex said sarcastically.

"Come on Alex, give the guy a break." Jason said, then turned to Tommy. "Hey, maybe you can take me flying one of these days?"

"Hey, I ain't no chauffeur!" Tommy said, glaring daggers back at Jason.

Gwen just smiled and covered her mouth, resisting the urge to burst out laughing.

"You think this is funny Gwen?" Jason said.

"Oh yes, uproariously. We've been picked, the cream of what Earth can offer! 'Only you can save mankind'. Good god is the universe in trouble! We can't even train without arguing with each other."

"Come on, we've got a month or so to train in, and I've booked time on the set... I mean the Command section, so we can train every evening."

"Oh joy." Alex said bitterly. "Just what the doctor ordered."

Jason Nesmith glared at them, his gaze scanning his 'crew' one by one.

"Come on guys, we've been through hell together and survived, pulled off something impossible. After that... well we've been great on set. You gotta admit these are the best of days huh? We've been a team again, coming off perfectly on camera. We just click! Why come apart now?"

"Because of the minor nuisance of imminent death." Alex said "I mean, 'Space Vampires'? Seriously?"

"Hey, no-one said we had to face space vampires. Like I said this is gonna be a quick cruise, little teaching and we're home again. Easy."

Guy winced at that comment, fingering the butt of his prop pistol.

"Why do you have to keep saying that? You know the more you say 'It's going to be easy' the more likely this thing is going to turn into a disaster."

"Guy, give it a rest." Gwen said. "Why should you worry now. You've got a real role and aren't 'disposable' any more."

"Hey, nothing stops someone from being written out of the script. Just because I h..."

"Guys, guys!" Jason interrupted. "Look, just come in this afternoon and we can start training, OK? Gwen, do you know when Obby's guys are coming?"

"Yeah. Lindsey said they had to postpone till seven pm tonight. Traffic or something."

"Great, gives us the chance to practice this afternoon. Come on guys! We're going to space again!"

At least some of the crew looked happy about that. Alex wasn't one of them.

* * *

*Snap ZZzzzap*

Down the shooting range a cardboard cut out of a pig-lizard disintegrated with a well placed ion blast.

Guy calmly slid the Ion Nebulizer back into it's holster once more, twisted his head, cricking his neck, then slitted his eyes, looking down range.

"Go ahead, make my millennium." he said as a new target slid into place, then quickly drew the alien pistol once more... and dropped it this time. "Ow, oh... dang it!" he said as it landed on his foot.

*ZZzzzap!*

"Woah!" Guy blinked, feeling his eyebrows. They were a little singed, but still there. "Wish Thermians thought to include safeties!"

"Roc! I mean Guy, how're ya doing?"

Guy turned to Jason as he stepped into the shooting range. Guy had managed to get Laliari to build it from the Reclamators on the Command Section. 'What was a Security Chief with out a shooting range to practice on?' Jason hadn't been too impressed at the time, but Guy had been practicing his shooting here a lot. Not exactly hard given that his role on the show was fairly minor. He only showed up every other episode!

"I'm fine." Guy said shortly, scooting the dropped pistol behind a waste basket. He'd pick it up later.

"You got a little... something..." Jason said, pointing at Guy's face.

"What?" Turning to a mirror Guy saw a single hair smoldering on his forehead. Pinching it out with wet fingers he turned and glared at Jason. Jason just grinned back at him.

"Hey, what you do on your time... on a range built by studio equipment... is up to you." Jason said sweetly.

"For the last time 'Commander' this is for everyone. Now more than ever! It's not just to make us look good on screen anymore, but a vital skill. We could find ourselves pitted against a slavering Lanrak, or a Phron beast, or even a G'donk combat soldier. Experience with our firearms is an absolu..."

"Yeah yeah, got it. Needs of the many etc." Jason said waving away the details of Guy's diatribe. "Look, we need to put our good face on for the 'Assistants' coming over tonight." Jason said, actually doing the 'quotes' gesture with his fingers when he said 'Assistants' "So why don't you show off your skills here hmm? You've been practicing down here for months. Maybe you can show these guys a thing or two?"

Guy pondered, glancing down at the pistol behind the waste basket.

"Yeeeeah. I guess we could try that." He said, unconvincingly.

Jason sighed.

"Look, Guy, I don't want a bunch of West Point know-it-alls to show us up. We've been out there, we know our stuff! I seriously doubt they'd have been able to defeat Sarris! Come on, get some team spirit here Chief!"

Guy raised a slightly smoldering eyebrow at this.

"Ya know, it's always bad news whenever you call me 'Chief' off set." He sighed, closing his eyes in resignation. "Sure, show of force. Sharpshooters extraordinaire. We'll knock 'em dead!"

Jason grimaced seeing Guy's forced enthusiasm.

"Just do your best Guy, OK? And wash your face first." He said before walking out.

"I'll wash your face you..." Guy muttered under his breath, then reached down grabbed the pistol and snap fired down the range, a Gdonk silhouette vanishing in a puff of blue light and cardboard confetti.

It was going to be a long night.


	3. Chapter 3

Jason fidgeted straightening his tie once more, despite it being a clip-on.

"Is my hair OK?" He whispered to Gwen.

Rolling her eyes Gwen sighed.

"Yes, Jason, you're fine. Stop fussing and... wait, here they are."

As the group of crew waited expectantly Lindsey, Jason's personal assistant, led a group of seven, very serious looking people in suits down the hall towards them.

"Now, everyone smile." Gwen said, giving her best. Alex's smile was watered down, but other than that they looked... presentable.

At the lead of the group Obby came forward, grinning.

"Jason!.. Or should we call you Peter?" Obidia said, offering his hand.

Jason chuckled as he shook the man's hand.

"I guess getting in character now wouldn't go amiss. Wouldn't want to slip when we meet Malthazar."

Alex groaned.

"Give it a break Jason. Given what he ignored before I don't think they'd believe it if we went and showed them your high school year book. As far as they're concerned the show is gospel, god help them."

Jason gave Alex a quick glare, then returned to smiling back at Obby.

"Anyway, We've prepared a light dinner before we.."

"No." came the short sharp comment from behind Obidia.

A tall, well build man, tightly fitting his suit, edged past his 'boss' and eyed Jason through slitted eyes.

"Ah... I don't think we've me..."

"General Colson, currently on indefinite loan to the Foundation from the US Army." the man said coldly and grasped Jason's hand in a quick, painful handshake. "As I was saying, we don't have time for pleasantries mister Nesmith. Please show us to the Command Section. Now."

Jason glanced sideways at Tommy, who gulped and shrugged back. Gwen didn't seem too happy about this either.

"Um, sure. This way... gentlemen." Jason managed, and led the way back further into the studio.

It was a short walk down a hall, and the decorators had done a good job. There was no division between going down a plasterboard walled hall and the Durallutanium hull of the Command section. The only time you'd know it was if the airlock blast doors slammed shut... and just hoped you weren't going through it at the time!

"OK, well, here we are." Jason said, and with a flourish opened the door to the bridge.

The group of seven suits marched into the bridge ahead of the cast, a few of them setting large suitcases down on open spaces.

"Hey, er, you might not want to put that there." Fred said "I don't think firing Lancers in the studio would help our insurance rates."

The man, a short mousy looking fellow nervously smiled and lifted the case off the control panel and straightened his glasses.

"Eh, sorry... Chen."

Fred winced.

"Fred. Please call me Fred." he said, offering his hand.

"Max Kent." He said, shaking hands. "Uh, thought we we're suppose to keep you 'in character'?"

"Ah, I just prefer Fred." Fred said back. "So, you're here to..."

"Engineer." Max said, straightening his glasses with a finger. "I'm an engineer, and I'm really looking forward to this. The Time Knot drive is something we've been eager to get our teeth into ever since we heard about this whole business."

"Oh cool." Fred said, smiling contentedly. "You gotta meet Elle."

"Elle?" Max said quizzically.

"Gentlemen!" General Colson interrupted. "If you're quite finished lets get down to business."

"Uh, sure." Jason said, sitting in 'The Chair' and getting comfortable.

At this the General frowned and glanced at Obidia. Jason coughed and leaned forwards.

"So, General, what do you want to see first? We have a lot to sh..."

"Just show Max where the replicators are."

"Uh, it's Reclamators." Fred said, holding his hand up almost like he was asking teacher to go to the bathroom. "They reshape any material into, you know, anything."

"Hey, ultimate recyclers!" Max said grinning, but his grin faded as he looked over at the general. "Yeah, maybe we ought to go check that out, hmm?"

A serious nod from the General and Max and Fred headed out to the 'engineering deck'. After they were gone Colson turned to Jason with a raised eyebrow.

"Reclamators?"

"Yeah," Jason said, attempting to be friendly, "the studio was on a 'go green' stint at the time. It was felt that doing the whole recycling thing would help win over the..."

"What the hell does whatever your studio did back then have to do with the Thermian technology?"

Jason glanced over at Gwen, but she just shrugged.

"Uh, they copied the show? All of it? I thought you knew all of this?"

Colson glared back.

"Of all the stupid, idiotic... And we have to deal with these Thermians?" He glared at Obidia, Jason glad to get off his 'glare' list for the moment.

Obidia at least didn't shrink from the General.

"I swear Colson, this is the first chance in decades we have to examine alien tech. If we'd managed to get the Sval to build a hyperdrive or something, well..." Obby said, fading out at the end under Colson's gaze.

"Of course." Colson said, then took a deep breath. "Right. Well I've already introduced myself, and the gentleman who left was Max Kent, high-energy engineering and electronics expert. Over here is my adjutant and special weapons expert, Lyudmila Mianova, veteran of Afghanistan."

A six foot tall muscular woman with crew cut black hair and wearing sunglasses nodded, mainly to Guy Fleegman, who gulped nervously.

"To my right is computer specialist, linguist and cryptographer Andre Lea-din on loan from... some Canadian university." The man who had started to head over to Gwen as the General introduced him, stopped with a shudder at the last comment. He did make a half smile and shook hands with Gwen at least, but glared daggers at the General, who didn't deign to notice.

"Beyond him is Flight Lieutenant Jeremy Merriweather, British Royal Air force." The tall gentleman saluted to Tommy before grinning. "He's one of a handful of pilots we have who has flown the new model Griffon orbital interceptor attached to the our Cruisers. We'll be ensuring the flight deck on the new Protector will be large enough to hold two of them at least, with support equipment, in addition to your own... pods."

The General's obvious disdain for the landing craft used on the show was obvious.

"And finally to my left is Professor Miles Anderson, A particle physicist from Princeton." A very serious looking man who looked completely out of place in the black suit he was wearing, stepped over to Alex and nodded, shaking the nervous actor's hand.

"Now, please explain your various disciplines to your counterparts while I stay here to relay information to Foundation HQ about where and when we can expect equipment to be shipped to the shipyard."

Jason blinked.

"Um, you don't want to confer with me? You know..."

General Colson leaned in, his glare in full force, eyes boring into Jason's unnervingly.

"Are you comparing your acting experience with my twenty five years of combat duty? Because if you think you even have an ounce of anything I would be interested you would be mistaken. Do I make myself clear?"

"I... er..."

"Good!" he said, turning away and leaving a very disturbed Jason sitting awkwardly in the 'captain's chair'.

Slowly Jason's brow furrowed as he dealt with the anger meted out.

"Wait, you can't just come in here and stamp all over us? I've been in combat, I've stood down Sarris and outwitted him, beaten a superior foe into submission. I think I deserve a little..."

"..Respect?" The words came out bitingly from Colson. "Was that what you wanted?" He turned around again, slowly, leaning over the chair once more. "One effort of trickery does not make you a combat veteran. It does not instill in me any urgent desire to seek out your inestimable wisdom."

Jason glared right back at him, though not with as much force as the older General.

"Look, 'Assistant', we're the ones in charge here, not you!" Jason said, surging out of the chair to get out from under Colson's gaze, though he was still slightly shorter than the General and was forced to look up even then.

Colson's gaze flicked to Obidia, then back to Jason, an icy silence falling in the room.

"As you wish 'Commander'. Your orders... _Sir_" He bit back, venom in every word.

Jason gulped, while Alex just slumped his head into his hand and groaned.

"For god's sake you two, give it a rest. I've had enough testosterone overload for a lifetime. Why don't we just go and... collaborate, or whatever." he said, waving to Professor Anderson to follow him over to the science console.

Slowly the others mostly left, even the General thankfully, and Jason slumped into his chair for a moment.

"OK, good meeting guys." He muttered to himself with a half-hearted sigh.

He stood up and headed out as well, but as he passed Alex he leaned in.

"Thanks. Nice defusing there." He muttered to him.

"Hey, bomb disposal is my second masters degree."

Jason looked oddly at him for a moment.

"I'm joking Jason. As I said before, just a drama education."

Anderson looked annoyed with the delay and tapped his watch, staring fixedly at Alex. Jason chuckled.

"I'll leave you to get acquainted then. It can only get better huh?" and he slapped Alex on the back.

"Oh please." Alex said, waiting till Jason had left. "It can get much worse than this... and probably will."

* * *

"Oh, and you gotta duck. You know, ceiling is a bit low. Oh, hey Elle." Fred waved into the cramped crawlspace. "Max, this is Laliari. She's our technical expert. Laliari, this is Max. He's into machines and stuff. You do much with spaceships Max?"

Max wasn't too bothered by the low ceiling, he just didn't straighten up much so his hair wouldn't rub up there.

"Yup, worked a bit on the Ajax, though that's all scrapped now. Protector way outdoes the Dauntless class. Um, Miss Laliari? I thought your name was Jane Doe, not Elle?"

Fred winced, getting to be a familiar expression for him. Laliari answered calmly though.

"That is true. Since arriving... here... I have acquired several names. I have been instructed to only use some of them though."

"It's OK Elle, we can trust these guys." Fred said, then turned to Max. "It's complicated, Jane Doe for reporters, Laliari for the... Historical documents, and Elle, I guess that's just what I call her."

"Yes tech sergeant Chen, I believe you are the only one to regularly refer to me by that name."

"Fred Elle, please call me Fred."

"But you are tech sergeant Chen. All of the historical documents refer to you by that name. It would be disrespectful to do otherwise."

Fred shook his head and looked sadly at Max.

"Yeah... anyway, these are the reclamators Max." Fred said, waving at four long cylinders, laying on the floor next to the far wall.

Each reclamator was about ten feet long and a foot wide, with long, glowing purple sections about midway down. The purple bits faded and glowed in a pattern, making it look like the glow was traveling down the unit. This of course was because the show had used cheap lighting to make the glow do that originally, but Fred thought the Thermian ones looked slightly cooler. Odd since most of the stuff looked identical to their old set props.

Max knelt down by the first unit and examined it.

"Laliari, what do these do exactly?" He said.

"The ionic reclamators take powdered matter and reform it with powerful electrostatic fields to form new objects. We use Hez-Kurshaw field correction to energize the wideband parallel cohesion plates next to the ionic distributers. This correctly aligns the particles and allow density diffusion for computer calculations on exact coordination of the..."

Fred glazed over the most of it, but Max seemed entranced, which was odd since most of the terminology was meaningless. The Thermians had taken it directly from the show and tried to make some sort of mathematics from it. It was a wonder they hadn't gone insane trying. Instead they'd actually succeeded somehow. Fred loved that. To think that these great guys took a stupid idea and actually made it work. It was like a great big 'booya' to all the egg heads in the world. Heh heh! He couldn't wait to see that Anderson guy try to make sense of this stuff.

"And it ionizes the pre-feed?" Max was asking as Fred 'retuned' to the conversation.

"No, the ionization occurs in the secondary chamber, while the flow is kept steady. This is very important to avoid calcitic re-aversion of the primary members."

"Really? Do you have a technical manual by any chance Elle?"

Fred raised an eyebrow. Not only was Max actually understanding what she was saying, well some of it anyway, but the two of them were really getting on well together... and he was calling her 'Elle'.

"Heh, this is cool. Hey you guys want some coffee or something? There's a drinks machine down the hall."

"I think understanding the... reclamators, is far more important mister Kwan."

Fred turned around and frowned. Colson was standing there outside, peering into the low ceilinged room.

"More important than coffee?" Fred tried, but no smile came to General Colson's face. "Come on, you can't ask your guys to go without coffee. It's a national institution."

Blinking Colson leaned down further to see in the chamber.

"You've been in here less than ten minutes. I hardly think you are dying of thirst. I need those reclamators churning out parts yesterday!"

"I am sorry mister Colson." Elle said "We do not possess the omega thirteen device, and I do not believe it is feasible to translate twenty four hours into the past."

Colson just stared at her unnervingly.

"See to it mister Kent." Colson said to his engineer and turned quickly and left.

"Fun guy huh?" Fred remarked, but Max just sighed.

"I guess we'd better get to work guys. I have a list that the foundation set up. Elle, could you help me find out how much of this you can build?"

"Of course Engineer Max Kent." Laliari said and started looking down the list.

"Oh right," Fred muttered wistfully to himself "His name you get right."

With a shrug he sat down beside them and pitched in as much as he could.

* * *

"And here is our pride and joy." Tommy said, waving Jeremy into a largish chamber. "It's not the hanger deck on the Protector of course, but we make do. And they're a joy to fly."

Jeremy whistled as he saw the two pods in the room, large steel doors on the far wall.

"You manage to fly these? Don't the traffic control boys say anything about that?"

"Oh heck no, they don't even know. These things have anti-radar coming out their... um, tailpipes."

Jeremy chuckled.

"Contrary to popular opinion British aren't completely unaware of swear words. I won't melt or anything."

"Heh, sorry. I... well come on, let me show you how she flies."

"What now?" Merriweather said. "Don't you need permission or something?"

"Naaah. Come on, let me show you what these babies can do!"

* * *

In the parking lot a truck driver felt a whoosh of air and something gray and huge darted overhead. Glancing around he couldn't see anything, but it _was _dark. The studio was out of town a little, with a huge parking lot. It used to be a convention hall a year ago, then it was converted to be the new studio for the whole Galaxy Quest revival.

Now he was delivering weird truckloads of stuff day and night. What the hell did a studio need with six tons of Styrofoam anyway? He'd had to have a second trailer truck behind him for that. Dang stuff took up way too much space for it's weight.

As he shook his head and went to inform the studio of his delivery he completely missed a gray dot behind him do a loop the loop around a bridge before disappearing upwards through the dark gray clouds into the starry night sky.

* * *

"Now Daney, I'm really sorry to ask this of you. I know you don't like retakes, but yesterday's scene with the missile tuning, we..."

"It's a Lancer homing projectile, not a missile." Alex said absently while a girl put the finishing touches on his headpiece. "Trust me, I've seen what they do first hand. It's not pretty."

"Oooof course." Harry glanced nervously at the makeup artist.

Was she in on it? Harry couldn't remember. He'd been directing for over ten years, and suddenly he was having to play spy or something, figuring out who should know this... crazy space stuff. And the cast just had no clue. They just casually talked about things in front of the crew while... it was stressing him out!

"Daney baby, fine. Projectile, whatever. But we need the digitizing scene done again..." again he looked at the makeup girl. "... but more accurately."

Alex froze and slowly drew his eyes up to meet Harry.

"Oh no... no no no no! You are not going to get Fred bloody Kwan to mess with my molecules!" Alex said. "Just pay for the special effects damn you!"

Right, of course he had no clue who should know about this stuff. Harry wondered if he'd have to fire this girl or not. Damn, but she did great work. It was hard to find good forehead people!

"We don't have the budget Alex. I'm sorry. Look he's really good now. You know there hasn't been an incident for over eight months. Trust me, it'll be good."

Alex just glared at him.

"Right. Incident." Alex said, pushing the makeup girl out of the way and sitting up, his expression getting more intense. "I've seen those watermelons he practiced on! You wouldn't even give that to starving children!" he said, grimacing.

Harry winced. Yeah, that had been... not good for moral. But Fred had been drunk that night. Digitizing watermelons all over town had been a nightmare to clear up! Especially as about half of them had looked like something out of a horror movie after they arrived... before they exploded.

"No, really. I've been through it myself twice." Harry had to suppress a shiver. That had been... tense, but necessary. He managed to keep his face straight at least. "It's good. You'll be fine."

Alex glared at him, his eyes boring into the director.

* * *

"By Grabthar's Hammer, we've done it!" Dr Lazarus exclaimed as the scanner screen showed the modified torpedo streaking through the enemy's armor to hit it's target.

"Warning, Protector armor is failing. Clear zones appearing in zones E through F, decks 2, 4 and 6. Warning." the computer droned.

A static appeared in the air, and you could see 'Dr Lazarus' twitch, and a look of horror creep onto his face.

"Oh no!" He whispered.

'Amazing acting', the camera crew would think later, watching the retakes. It was a shame that had been done by the other shift. They'd have loved to have seen that take in person, watching the horror on Alex Dane's face as he was slowly digitized off the ship by the L-Gant vessel. Of course you wouldn't see the digitizing on set. That was special effects added afterwards.

Security Chief Ingersol cried out 'Nooooo!' dramatically as the alien scientist vanished in a cloud of particles.

They really did do great special effects on this show!

* * *

"Hah! Look at his face! Did you see that?" Guy said, grinning as they watched the footage.

"How'd you get this copy anyway?" Fred asked, getting more comfy in the rec area on the Command Section as they watched the footage of the digitizing 'scene' "I don't think the crew like handing out footage before it's been through the cutting room?"

"Oh this isn't their footage. I'm security chief, remember? I had the ship engage the Red Protocol and the internal sensors got it all. I can play this from any angle!"

"Heh, that's cool." Fred said, sipping a drink as he watched Alex's panic as he disintegrated again.

When he'd arrived on the Digitizer platform he'd just glared at Fred and stomped out of the room without a word. This had been worth it.

"Hey Guy? How's it going with your Assistant?" Fred asked.

Guy winced.

"Yeah... I took her to the shooting range... You know she carries a machine pistol with her at all times? Some kind of alien ammo for it. Blew the targets to pieces and damaged the far wall. I never even got a chance to show her the Nebulizers! She's... intense."

"And hot." Fred said.

"Well yeah... but... That could be hazardous to life and limb. I mean, I think she could kill me with her pinkie!"

"It'd be a hell of a way to go though."

The two chuckled, though Guy a little more nervously than Fred.

"Hey." Came from the door, and Fred and Guy turned to see Jason poking his head in the room. "You two seen Tommy round here? Colson can't comm the Brit or Tommy and he's getting bitchy."

"Nope. Not seen him since this morning. He seemed to like his assistant though. He should be fine." Fred said, relaxing.

* * *

"AAAAGGGGHHHHHHHHH!" Tommy screamed from the rear seat as the Griffon ACF-12 screamed through the upper atmosphere at Mach twenty two, flames flicking off the hull. "God! Slow down man... Y... you're gonna burn up!"

Merriweather laughed, muffled in the flight helmet that Tommy had refused to wear, and yanked the stick hard over, then up.

Tommy screamed again as the craft twitched and managed a hard turn in the upper atmosphere. He could swear he saw the wing's bending up from the strain and he almost blacked out from the g's.

"Ah come on, don't be a pansy. That was only eight g's! The compensators on those pods have given you way too easy a time of it. Hey, wanna take the stick?"

Tommy panted hard, gasping for breath, then saw Jeremy lift his hands above his head, and the control stick before him wavered, uncontrolled.

"Whaaaa?" He said, and grabbed it as the fighter began to twist.

Tommy gasped again, but steadied the ship, streaking back out into space once more. He didn't know half of these controls, but the stick and throttle were easy enough, and he could work out the scanner... he thought. Yeah, there was the Dauntless.

"I'm heading back! You're nuts!" he said, hauling them over and trying to match speeds with the cruiser.

"Come on, we've barely even left orbit. I wanted to show you the high winds on Mars."

"Huh. Don't be stupid! Those sandstorms are a pain in the ass! You know how hard it is to get Mars sand out of filters? Damn stuff is nasty!"

Tommy didn't notice the faint murmur of approval from Jeremy as he got onto an intercept vector with the Dauntless, on a fighter he'd never flown before, and closed in on cruiser. He picked up his vox and managed to find the frequency Jeremy had shown him.

"This is... GF-104 inbound. Am I clear to land?"

"Mes Oui. You are clear to land on ze port dock." The strongly accented French voice said on the speaker.

The fighter came in far slower than Jeremy would have taken it, sliding through the open, heavy bay doors before coming down towards the deck.

"Where the heck is the landing gear thingy?" Tommy said, before Jeremy laughed and lowered them himself.

Puffs of vapor from the wings vanished in the vacuum as Tommy maneuvered it down to the ground, and finally touched the deck. Electrostatics made a faint buzz as they held the wheels down and he finally sat back in his seat and released his straps.

"You are nuts, you know that Merriweather?"

"Hey, it's what I'm trained for. I think Constructional Insanity is on the course. Anyway, wanna meet the Captain? I'm sure Ambrose'd love to meet you."

"Nah, look just get me back to my pod. Nesmith is probably going crazy by now!"

Jeremy chuckled as the atmosphere stabilized in the hanger deck. This guy did have some skill, but he really needed to loosen up some.


	4. Chapter 4

Jason reclined his seat, relaxing for the first time today.

It's been a rough two days. Just the screaming dress down Colson had given Tommy and Jeremy had been bad enough, but the whole incident with Anderson's black eye. *sigh* Apparently Anderson and Dane did not get on well together. Surprisingly the quiet looking professor had quite a pair of lungs on him. The shouting match between those two had been heard throughout the studio yesterday.

"Commander." The stern, yet still condescending voice shocked Jason from his reverie.

"Uh, hi. General. Come on in." He said, then more quietly. "Make yourself at home."

"We need to talk." Colson said, shutting the door to Jason's dressing room.

Oh this wasn't going to be good.

"Hey, pull up a chair General." Jason said, standing up himself and heading over to the mini-bar. "Drink?"

Colson just stared back at him and Jason's smile wilted. Yeah, this was definitely not going to be fun.

"I hear Andre is having trouble with the computer." Jason said as he grabbed himself a bourbon and sat back down.

"It's under control. Apparently the thing reacts violently to Pascal."

"Can't say I blame it. I can't stand the French myself." Jason said, but Colson didn't smile. He thought about attempting to explain the joke... but the look on Colson's face dissuaded him from the idea.

"Look," Colson said acidly, "we have about a week to get enough of the equipment ready for shipment, and the 'Reclamators' just aren't working well enough. The deadline is three and half weeks and we haven't even got the power grid components shipped yet."

"I thought the grid was coming from the Ajax components." Jason said more seriously, sipping his drink.

"Didn't work. Incompatible systems."

"Uh huh. A lot of that going around." Jason said, but there was no comment from Colson. "Um, why the tight deadline anyway? I mean, it's not as if we've got a launch window or anything."

"Your 'friends' gave us the deadline. 'Send Commander Taggart to negotiate before June fifth or we leave the area without you.' Malthazar's words."

"Ah..." Jason said. "Malthazar's getting ballsy. Funny, Obidia never mentioned that time constraint being that fixed."

Colson grimaced.

"Oh yes, there a lot of things mister Obidia Lang fails to mention." Colson put a hand on the desk beside him and leaned in. "Look, I don't like you Nesmith." No surprise there! "But I'm warning you, don't trust that man. He's been the death of far too many agents over the years."

Jason raised an eyebrow. He was about to ask for an explanation of that, but something in the General's expression made it obvious he wasn't going to elaborate.

"Riiiight. And this guy is our boss? Wonderful." He took a swig of bourbon and bared his teeth. "Do we get danger pay?"

A stony stare was the only response he got to that.

"OK, but we can still make the ship, right?"

"The ship's hull is already built, what we need are the components to fit into it. Especially the Time Knot drive. As far as I understand it though Professor Anderson is not getting anywhere determining the control method for it. It's going to do us no good if we get the drive installed but can't control it."

"Don't fret, the systems will work fine. We'll get your hyperdrive thingy. Fred works wonders."

Colson rolled his eyes.

"From the reports I've seen your 'Tech Sergeant Chen' knows nothing about the ship's systems. It's all that alien's handiwork!"

"Laliari. Yeah, she's pretty good with a space wrench." Still no smile from the General. What would it take? "Yeah... look Kwan is getting the feel for the ship, knows the layout like the back of his hand and has really got the whole digitizing thing down. I think he's the only one who can work that thing."

"Which makes it practically useless to me. I need something reliable and not to depend on one individual's knowledge. What if he's killed in combat?"

Jason's brow furrowed and he stood up.

"Then I suggest you ensure he doesn't get killed,_General_." Jason said, icily.

For a few moments the two glared at each other, and this time it was the General that pulled away first.

"Just make sure the damned list is finished on time. I'll have a galaxy transport here on May twentieth to pick up the Command Section. After it's installed on the Protector and the rest of the systems check out we're leaving."

Of course he slammed the door.

* * *

Gwen stood at the loading bay with Fred and looked at the crates.

"So, how much is ready?" She asked, glancing around nervously.

Fred wasn't sure what was up with Gwen but she'd been acting real weird the last couple of days.

"We got the Electonium conduits all ready, and... you know, packed. Heh." Fred chuckled. "I took the time with Elle to get it right. Check it out."

He opened a crate and inside it were... rocks. Rocks that were rather familiar to Gwen.

"Are those... Grignak?"

Fred chuckled.

"Heh, couldn't resist. Had the reclamators reshape the Styrofoam into the right type of rocks from the shipboard records. I was hoping Jason'd be down here."

Gwen shuddered.

"I don't think that'd be a good idea. But those 'rocks' are sealed up tight?"

"Yeah." Fred said, locking the crate back up again "We had some problems getting some of the larger components hidden inside the 'rocks', but we got it sorted. The Foundation will be getting their first shipment tonight."

With a sigh she smiled.

"Good, cos Colson has been breathing down my neck all day to get the thing ready. He sa..."

"Miss DeMarco! Gwen, Ahh, there you are! I 'ave been looking all over for you. You 'iding from me now?" The French cryptologist strode up to Gwen and Fred, Gwen hiding a wince as he approached, mouthing 'help me' to Fred. When Fred just shrugged she reluctantly put on her best face and turned to Miles.

"Um, yeah, Miles, look I've got some records to catch up on, inventories etc. I've really got to get going."

The ever smiling man calmly put an arm around Gwen's shoulder, not noticing Gwen's shudder.

"You work yourself too hard mes amis. Come on, take a break!"

"Sorry, look I think Jason was wanting to talk to you about... something. He's on the Bridge."

"Ah well, do not fret. I will sort it out and be back soon. I can assist you with the inventory, yes?"

Waving with a very fake smile as Andre walked away, Gwen leaned over to Fred.

"If that guy grabs my ass one more time I'm going to deck him. You think Colson would mind?"

"Meh, couldn't hurt to try?" Fred said with a chuckle.

* * *

"Come on Lt Daredo, keep the distance down!" Commander Taggert said, leaning over, staring at the fleeing vessel. He turned to Lt Madison. "Any word from Roc and his team?"

"Computer, status of the Abroad Team?" Lt Madison said, staring at her console.

"Checking... Checking..." the computer intoned. "Warning, error detected. Checksum invalid. Restart to continue."

"Cut cut!" The shaking of the chamber stopped and the crew groaned, the director shaking his head. "For heaven's sake. What is up with that thing?"

Gwen frowned at the screen.

"I don't know. Maybe picked up a computer virus? It's been acting odd lately."

"OK, OK, see if you can get it working. Lets try again people. Camera two, pull back, standby to zoom in on Gwen. OK, from the top people."

Everyone took a breath, got back into character, and then the room started shaking once more.

"Come on Lt Daredo, keep the distance down!" Peering at the viewscreen Commander Taggert stared at the fleeing vessel. Turning to Lt Madison he said. "Any word from Roc and his team?"

"Computer, status of the Abroad Team?" Lt Madison said, trying to hide a wince.

"Checking... Checking..." She held her breath. "Chief Ingersol and Abroad Team members located on deck twelve of enemy vessel. All six human lifesigns positive. No threats detected in close proximity to Abroad Team."

"Good, good." Taggert said, then peered at the screen. "Is that?... Daredo, bring us onto the port side a little."

The view on the screen shifted as the Protector swung to port, attempting to get a look at that side of the target.

"Those are plasma vents." Taggart said, frowning. "But the there aren't any on the other side..." as he talked the vents stopped here too. "They're closing all the reactor cooling systems! They're going to self destruct! Chen, keep a lock on the Abroad Team. I need them out of there the instant they find Lazarus!"

The crew waited a few seconds. Later on a scene aboard the enemy vessel would be pasted in at this point, with Roc Ingersol blasting aliens and breaking into Lazarus' cell.

"Computer, Abroad Team status?" Gwen said anxiously.

"Now six human life signs detected and one Mak'Tar life sign."

"Chen! Digitize, now!"

"Sir!" Chen's voice came on the comms. "I do not have solid scan! They still too close to the scan-blocked prison cell!"

"Now Chen!" Tagart screamed, and small explosions started to pepper the hull of the ship on the view screen.

"And cut." Harry said, tiredly. "OK, take a break people. We'll do the Lazarus Returns scene in ten."

Alex slow clapped from behind the cameras as the crew got up from their seats on the Bridge.

"Brilliant acting, could break the tension with an icepick." He said sarcastically, Jason glaring at him.

"Hey, we're doing this for you Alex. Getting rid of your headpiece with the whole 'Accidentally merge with a miscellaneous crew member and turn human' ploy. A little appreciation wouldn't hurt!"

"Hmph!" Alex grunted. "Last I heard the writers were going nuts. 'So many new directions we can take this!' and 'archetypal angst of the human condition.' You know some of those people really need to look up what the words mean before using them."

"Zip it Dane." Gwen said, as she stomped by.

Alex raised an eyebrow at Jason.

"What's up with Madison?"

Jason winced.

"I know I said try to stay in character, but things have been getting... weird with some of the assistants. Might give the crew names a miss till we board the ship. Colson is starting to get real snippy."

Alex snorted.

"Starting? I think that man was born tense."

"Hey guys, guys?" Guy said, running up to them. "Any news from Harry? He still hasn't said when we're doing the boarding scene."

"Oh don't worry Rambo," Alex said, patting him on the shoulder, "you'll get your chance to fire your little pop-guns."

"Knock it off Alex!" Guy said, shaking Alex's hand off.

"Yeah, Alex?" Jason said. "It's not just Gwen having issues is it? You having trouble with Anderson?"

Alex rolled his eyes.

"The man can't fathom why he can't understand Thermian physics. I've tried to tell him they're ultra advanced, incredibly developed morons, but he won't listen. And he keeps trying to get me to explain the damned maths! Trust me, York College for the Arts did not cover multi-dimensional physics!"

Jason and Guy looked at each other and with a smile managed, almost in sync, to say...

"You only took Drama."

"You only took Drama."

Alex squinted at them.

"One of these days someone is going to need someone to play Othello. Well when that day comes don't come crying to me!" he said, then stomped off.

"Isn't Othello black?" Jason asked.

"What, you're asking me?" Guy said. "I was just an extra. I never took acting lessons."

* * *

A few days later Jason, Gwen, Fred, Alex, Tommy, Harry and Laliari stood outside, looking on as the large jet transport plane taxied up the huge parking lot to the studio wall... which was hinging open. The nose of the jet was also swinging up and just beyond it, in the darkness inside the studio, you could see the Command Section, the various walls around it having been cut away.

"So, all the extras etc have the day off?" Gwen said.

"Yes, it's all sorted." Harry said tiredly. "This is going to cost us. Is the Foundation paying down time for all this? We're going to miss three days of shooting before the replacement sets are installed properly."

Jason glanced from Harry to Gwen and back.

"Uh, Harry? We're going to be... kind of out of it for a while."

Harry clenched his eyes shut tight and pinched the bridge of his nose.

"And you were going to tell me this, when?"

"Oh, well... now? Hey, don't worry, we'll bring you some pics back from space."

"You're going out there again? Oh god, you barely got back in one piece last time!"

Alex grunted.

"That's what I've been saying!"

"Look, Harry." Jason said. "This is just a temporary thing. The assistants want us to show them the ropes, teach them how things go out there. It won't be long. Maybe a month or two tops."

"A MONTH OR TWO?" Harry gasped. "Come on! We're in syndication! We can't renege on the deals like that!"

"Hey, we're way ahead, right? It'll be months before we're due to deliver episodes." Jason said

"Jason. You don't get it. We're running fast now because we don't need much in the way of post production. No special effects! Heck, even the troop battle scenes only need alien make-up. Those pistols of yours can even change colors. Put a molded case around one, turn it to 'Red beam', and presto, you've got a Gdonk fireblaster. Do you know how long modern special effects take?"

"It's OK, we're talking with the Foundation. We're hoping to get a version of the Command Section back after all this, built from the ship's reclamators. We'll manage Harry, don't worry."

Harry and the rest of the crew turned to watch as the four tractors pushed the Command Section finally into the Galaxy transport. A very fitting name for a plane Jason thought. Slowly the plane's nose closed and it started to back up.

"Don't worry Harry. We'll be on Earth a little while. Stay in touch and we'll keep you up to date on all this. We'll be fine." Jason said, putting an arm around Harry's shoulder.

Why wasn't Harry reassured?


	5. Chapter 5

"Hello, and Welcome aboard Kingston Airways flight 84 to Delta Utah."

Jason just nodded absently to the stewardess as he dragged his case behind him, the others following on behind.

"Welcome aboard flight 84 to Utah. I hope you have a pleasant flight."

Gwen hefted her case up and sighed.

"Don't you get tired of saying the same thing over and over to everyone?" She asked, but the stewardess just smiled back, before turning to the next passenger.

It took a few minutes but everyone, including the assistants, had found their seats and stowed their baggage.

"And why couldn't the Foundation have a private jet for us again?" Jason asked Obidia. "At least they could have given us seats on the Galaxy transport.

"Oh, trust me you wouldn't have enjoyed that." He replied with a grin as he belted up,. "Noisy, uncomfortable, and I understand they vibrate quite a bit. At least in those bucket seats."

Jason glanced around.

"And I notice Colson isn't with us, not that I'm complaining mind you."

"Ah, yes. Apparently he had some business in town first. He'll meet us at the base later."

From the seat behind Guy stood up and leaned over the seat.

"Utah? This has gotta be Area 51 we're heading for, right?"

Rolling his eyes Obidia shook his head.

"Even if we were US military that wouldn't be our destination. Do you really think top secret, alien technology would be stored at a base the whole world knows about? True, the area is good for things like this, but no. We have a facility on Sevier Lake, a ways southwest of Salt Lake City. The area is mostly used for mining but not much at present. It's not totally isolated, but it's quiet enough for our purposes."

Guy seemed disappointed at that, but grunted and settled back down. Some thickly accented muttered comments followed, a few words that Jason caught; 'idiot' 'kill yourself', seemed to indicate that Lyudmila thought very highly of seat-belts.

Jason sat there, deep in thought, staring out of the window as they took off. It was quite a few minutes later that he turned to Obidia and quietly asked.

"You never actually said what those Sval guys did to you back then. Did the Foundation guys manage to figure out what the equipment they used on you was doing?"

Slowly Obidia closed his eyes, a tiredness washing over his face.

"Heh, of course." With a sigh he turned to Jason. "I... don't really like talking about that. It may have been a long time ago, but still have nightmares about it... But, I understand. OK."

He lay back a little, staring up at the ceiling.

"Well, first... I woke up laying on a table. Seems they had... tasted the odd bite or two and were attempting some medical tools to fix me up. At the time that struck me as rather humorous. Then the pain started to wash through me. They paid no heed to anything I did, just stood there poking me with needles and waving buzzing tools over me."

"What were they like? I mean what did they look like?"

Jason shuddered as Obby's eyes flicked down to meet his. That look was pretty scary in itself!

"Hope you never find out personally!" He said intensely, then more softly. "OK, well, they were roughly humanoid, but rather insect like in detail. When we described them as 'space vampires' it was from a lot of details, but not their appearance. Bella Lugosi they were not." He said with a faint smile, that then faded as a perplexed look crossed Jason's face. "God, what do they teach kids these days?"

"Yeah grandpa, you tell 'em."

Obby squinted at Jason, but did manage to smile back.

"Well, anyway, they look almost skeletal, with a long head fitted with over-sized mandibles that can bite through steel. They can eat almost any organic stuff and can adapt several chemicals within themselves to, well, subdue people. It's tricky as they have to remain close to control their slaves. Some kind of pheromone thing that we still don't understand. So, they naturally can't bite you and make you like them, as in the vampire legends, but they can to make you serve them... and apparently they did have ways of using technology to turn other races into their race. And yes, they do live an awful long time."

Jason edged back in his seat unconsciously. Obby just smiled.

"Heh, I'm used to _that _reaction. No, I didn't get fully turned into a Sval. At the time we thought that the technology they used on me was to understand humans so they could use their enslaving chemicals on us. In that we were wrong. They can do that to ninety percent of the races in the galaxy anyway. No, this is just their way of procreating. We have no idea how a race evolves without a natural means of reproducing, but it seems this is the only way they do it now. Turn others into their race via technology."

"So, you eventually figured it out. Does that mean you salvaged the tech for that?"

"I wish." Obby said tiredly. "Maybe then we could have reversed what they did. I was... rescued, by a regiment of troops while the transformation was half way through. After they killed the Sval, at no small cost to themselves, they found the machine running, with me screaming inside. They did the only thing they could think of. They shot it. Pretty thoroughly. Lucky for me it worked and I didn't die... for almost a century now. I have no clue how long I'll live, but I seem to be the same age now as I was then biologically. From some of the injuries I've had on missions since then we've found I heal a little quicker than usual too, but other than that I'm perfectly normal. According to the hundreds of medics that have inspected me over the decades anyway."

Jason stared at the man. He couldn't imagine what he'd been through. It seemed as if he wasn't hiding himself away either. He could maybe live for decades or centuries more... yet was risking his life for the Foundation. For Earth if what he said about their organization was true. Didn't sound like someone not to trust. What did that say about Colson? Why didn't the man trust Obby?

"Well, what's the plan when we get to the base anyway Obby?" Jason said, changing the subject abruptly.

Obidia quirked an eyebrow at him then shrugged.

"Well, they want to get the fabricators... sorry, reclamators, up and running when we get there pretty quick to avoid lost time. I understand they already have a framework setup to mount the Command Section near the roof of the hanger. They'll build the ship up to it there, then connect the two together. The hull should be fairly quick to finish up, but right now it's all built, but in pieces in the Dauntless construction hanger. The internal works of the Protector is another matter. We'll assemble the hull around the Ajax's reactor then I think see if your Laliari can improve it any. It's a Me'yon design compression fusion pulse reactor, something at the limit of what we can build right now."

Jason got the feeling that Obidia, despite not being an engineer, had picked up a keen interest in technology over the decades. From the way he talked he certainly seemed fascinated by it anyway.

"Well, what do you want us to do when we get there?" Jason said, laying back in his seat again.

"Just more of the same. Keep trying to get your assistants to actually know what they're doing. We need to get the crew, the whole crew, up to scratch before launch. This is probably the one chance we'll get at persuading Malthazar and his crew to stick around and share information with us."

"Share? What can we share with him? They're way beyond us technologically."

Obby smiled.

"Oh ye of little faith. Trust me, even beyond the cultural stuff, which it seems they are very interested in, we have a few tricks up our sleeves they might find fascinating. The real trick is to do it without letting on we aren't the Earth from Galaxy Quest. Frankly, that's how I pushed you lot being on this mission. Aside from your experience with the ship, we need actors right now."

Jason stared out the window, sipped his orange juice, and tried to understand how he felt about that. Did he want to be an actor right now? Did he want to be Jason Nesmith, a nobody who geeks liked to watch on TV? Or did he want to be Peter Taggert, space commander? A REAL space commander. He'd proven he could be Peter, to some extent, but even with his ego he had managed to realize he didn't have the experience really to pull it off without help. Not in the long run anyway. True, it seemed his knowledge from the TV show had helped more than he would have thought, but...

As much as he hated to admit it he might need Colson. Military experience was something he had very little of. If he ever hoped to really command a ship he'd have to get the man to trust him and work with him.

Obby looked at him oddly as Jason snorted into his drink. Yeah, best not explain to Obby what he'd been thinking of then. He'd probably think it just as likely as Jason did!

* * *

"Thank you for flying Kingston Airways." The stewardess said brightly, but Jason merely nodded, barely even looking at her as they left the plane.

Gwen looked askance at Jason as she followed him on. He'd been pretty quiet through most of the trip too. A pensive, thoughtful Jason was not quite what she was used to. Let alone one that didn't check out the local skirt!

"Ahh, Mister Nesmith and crew?" yet another man in a suit said from the lobby when they exited the boarding tube. "Please, follow me. We have transport arranged. It's a forty mile drive so you won't have too long to wait till you're settled in."

The newcomer was very nondescript in appearance, very little expression and very ordinary features. Some kind of government agent perhaps? Or was that an over-used cliché?

"Bradford!" Obidia said as he got in sight of the man. "Good to see you. How goes the hanger work?"

Bradford did smile slightly at this, and nodded to Obidia while guiding Jason and the others towards the security gates.

"Oh we're nearly set up. They've already got the Command Section on the cranes. Tonight I'd guess it'll be secure and the construction work can begin."

"Finally!" Obby said with a fierce expression. Jason wondered how long Obidia had waited for this?

* * *

The drive felt longer than forty miles, though a lot was down a major highway. As they passed the 'lake' Jason frowned as he saw digging machines around the Eastern shore of...

"OK, first, that isn't a lake, and second... who are those guys?" Jason said, pointing towards the excavators.

"Heh, yeah, should have warned you about that I guess." Obby said, leaning over in his seat towards Jason. "It's a dry lake, a source of a load of minerals. Those diggers are from a commercial organization that mines potash, among other things. We helped set it up recently as there started to get more civilian traffic out here, and it acts pretty well as a cover for shipping in equipment."

Jason nodded and stared out again. It definitely didn't look like a lake that was for sure. Just a white patch of ground stretching out into the distance. Though he thought he saw little patches of water here and there.

"Well, I guess water-skiing is out of the question then." He said, and got an annoyed look from Gwen.

Once they passed the lake they turned south, off the highway and onto dirt roads. Well made dirt roads, but this still was the back end of nowhere, it looked like. After another ten minutes they ended up on a stretch of land jutting out into the 'lake'.

"OK, here we are. Needle point. We picked this as a location a long time ago, mainly for the construction materials to hand. Lithium especially for some of the more advanced fusion systems we were working on."

"Oh hey." Fred said. "You making Tritium?"

Obby turned and stared at him oddly, Fred looking back calmly at him.

"Um, yeah, well 'make' is the wrong word, but yeah." He eyed 'tech sergeant Chen' as they left the trucks.

Alex walked up beside Fred and whispered to him.

"So, been reading up on fusion mechanics have we?"

"Nah." Fred answered casually. "Elle and Max have been talking. I just pick things up."

Alex chuckled as they headed over to what looked like a porta-cabin.

"Welcome to Port Sevier, the only spaceport on the planet!" Obby said dramatically as he opened the door to the building. "Mind the step."

Inside it was a rundown, typical building site porta-cabin... with a couple of bored security guards by a door on the far side of the room. The group was led up to the doors and beyond, which turned abruptly into a rather snazzy looking, downward sloping corridor. Light blue walls and yellow ceiling definitely didn't mimic the standard grey military base in most movies.

"No elevator going miles underground?" Jason asked.

"Well, we did want to avoid the whole 'trapped if the power cuts out' thing, but there are elevators on the first level that can access the base, don't worry."

As Obby led the group of actors and assistants along they passed a huge window, and most of them turned to gaze at the scene beyond.

"You know, this is rather familiar. I mean that was in space, true, but..." Jason said staring down at a huge hanger with cranes holding the relatively tiny Command Section high above the ground, and below a series of girder frameworks looked half finished around the floor.

It did remind a lot of the cast of the space-dock where the Thermians had built their Protector. Two massive doors were on opposite walls of the hanger, looking like fore and aft of where the ship would be once built.

"And the Protector is going to be finished in two weeks?" he asked.

"Last estimate I saw said one week." Obidia said with a smile. "I hope so. The deadline is for meeting Malthazar, not finishing the ship! We're going to need some time to get the kinks sorted out and to actually go and meet him."

Jason slapped him on the shoulder.

"Don't worry Obby, we'll manage. 'Never give up, never surrender!' "

Luckily Jason didn't see Alex's sour expression at hearing the show's motto once more.

"And here you are." Obby said at last, leading the group along an access-tube into the Command Section once more. "I think you know your way from here. Metford here is in charge of the Protector project." he said, waving to the ever serious looking Bradford. "You need anything, see him. He'll need your assistance to get the Protector up to scratch too. Kwan, make sure you and Laliari work closely with him, OK?"

Fred nodded amiably and shook hands with Bradford while Obby waved and headed out. Apparently he had other things that needed his attention elsewhere on base.

Guy came up alongside Jason, looking anxious.

"Um, do we have any idea when we'll be doing my boarding scene? I mean, it's the only thing left of that episode now and..."

"Fleegman! Come!" a firm voice said, making Guy wince. "We need to ensure that security is tight, yes?"

The stoic, six foot Lyudmila stood scowling at him, her arms crossed. Guy managed a weak smile and followed the heavy footsteps of the well muscled Russian as she headed off into the ship.

Jason grinned after him and clapped his hands firmly together.

"Yes, the team's coming together pretty well."

Alex groaned and shook his head before leaving himself. Jason got the feeling he was the only enthusiastic one here.

* * *

Alex stared at a screen full of mathematics on the far wall-monitor, and then across at the very puzzled physicist gazing up at them intently. Smiling he stepped in behind the man.

"So, able to reconcile the Moore-Hart equations with the Dan Aykroyd variables?" Alex said, in his best Dr Lazarus voice.

"What?" Anderson said, clearly frustrated and annoyed. "I thought you said you didn't know this stuff?"

Alex managed not to goggle at him. This guy thought 'Dan Aykroyd variables' were real maths? Does he watch any movies?

"No, none whatsoever." Alex said slowly. The guy still showed know sign of recognition, but now he was getting mad.

"OK, fine. You think I'm an idiot. I get it. Just lay off, alright? This is bad enough as it is without some hack actor trying make me feel like a moron."

Alex's eyes slitted at the 'hack' reference. Somehow he managed to keep his mouth shut, though it was hard. A few moments later Anderson just threw his hands in the air.

"Oh why do I bother?" He said, stomping out of the room. "You figure it out, 'Dr Lazarus'!"

After the door slid shut behind him Alex turned to the screen.

"Hmph, why bother trying to work it out you idiot!" He muttered. "Just use it! You've got a whole series of maths equations and you're bogging yourself down in figuring out how the damned things came about."

He glanced over the screen... OK, he couldn't use that stuff. Way beyond him, but he was pretty sure Anderson could, if he'd just accept the things and work with them.

Then the door slid open again and Jeremy Merriweather popped his head in.

"Ah, hello mister Dane. By chance have you spotted Thomas around? The base commander has allocated us some time to plan out the pod and fighter layouts on the new vessel, but I can't do it without him. Wouldn't be right."

Alex stared at him.

"Let me guess, you've grown up with the whole 'Brits are polite and treat others far better than anyone else' schtick?" Merriweather blinked as Alex continued. "Trust me, I've been around the states and across the old country and have learned one thing. People are the same all over. Either uncomprehending morons or Conniving, backstabbing bastards."

Alex got up and stomped to the door himself, as Jeremy stared shocked at him, then the actor huffed and glanced across at the pilot, a tired looking frown on his face. He paused for moment, then sighed and rolled his eyes.

"He's on the Bridge with Jason, Gwen and Colson." Alex said, then shook his head and left.

* * *

Jeremy opened the door to the bridge and saw a frantic display on the main screen. Dozens of ships plying back and forth, energy blasts heading towards the Protector, Tommy at the controls frantically guiding it back and forth.

Nesmith, looking annoyed, was standing at the back, while Colson was giving orders rapidly and emphatically, some to Tommy at the controls, some to the Computer via Gwen at the chair at the back of the room.

"No, come about, hard left. Bring us on their port side. Heave up ten degrees. Computer barrage fire on target number six. No! Mister Weber, up ten degrees. Hold." He said as a couple of vessels on the screen broke from the group and starting towards them. "Slide right, bring our nose to that new target group. Lateral thrusters, port full thrust. Heave up on main thrusters. Twist on a heading of..."

The screen flashed several times and the computer suddenly intoned.

"Plasma armor depleted. Hull receiving multiple impacts."

Gwen looked thoroughly annoyed at this point and did not attempt to reiterate what the computer was saying. Jeremy didn't think that would go down well with Colson.

"Jink damn you!" Colson said, getting louder. "Twist to starboard. Computer, assign new group as target J, fire main guns on it. Weber, bring us to..."

A flash on the screen and it went black.

"Protector has been destroyed. Simulation terminated."

"God damn it Weber! Do what I damn well tell you!"

"He did Colson. Every single thing. Why don't you sit in the flight chair? You seem to know every centimeter you want him to move."

Colson glared at Jason, ignoring the tired and frustrated looking Tommy Weber. Jeremy winced. He knew that feeling. Colson had a habit of trying to micromanage things and often took it too far, especially when he himself was new at something. Overcompensation? Well...

"Merriweather!" Colson said, noticing him at the door. "Get in here and show Weber how combat maneuvers are done."

Jeremy suppressed a shudder and strode in.

"Actually sir, afraid I can't. Bradford has me organizing the layout for the new smallcraft bays. We need Tommy to assist in the design. Do you mind?"

Colson glared at him, then across at Tommy. He hated it when he was outranked in decisions.

"Fine, get him out of here Flight Lieutenant." He grunted grudgingly. "Make sure to notify me when the layout is finalized. I need to know the deck plans of the finished ship."

When the two of them had left Colson stood stock still for all of ten seconds before turning on Jason.

"What?" he said dramatically.

"Oh hey, I was just watching your amazing command style. I'm learning so much from the military mastermind here."

"Give me a break!" Colson said with a snort. "I suppose you feel you know so much more."

Jason stared at him for a couple of seconds, then off to one side said.

"Gwen set us up again will you? From the top? Assign a simulated pilot."

As Gwen muttered quietly to the computer and the screen reset, the view of the Protector jumped into an ambush of multiple targets appearing on the screen. Colson shook his head.

"This is stupid! You have no military training, no understanding of combat, no..."

"Gwen, open hailing frequency to lead vessel."

A picture appeared on the screen of a bubbly alien, looking like five brown balls of goo with eyes on stalks.

"Greetings, this the NSEA Protector. How can we help you?"

"LEaAve thIS spaCE Now oR You WilL BE fiREd upON!" came the odd, gurgled response.

"We mean no harm. There have been reports of pirate attacks in this sector, we're just checking the local vicinity."

"LIES! You Have beeEN TargETTING ouR SHIpping. PiraTES One AnD all!"

Jason held his hands up as Gwen muttered about them powering up weapons and engaging their armor.

"Let us help you locate the pirates. I promise we have not been here before today. What can it hurt? You far out gun our vessel. You can easily destroy us. Allow us to help track down the felonious fiends."

Gwen winced at 'felonious fiends' but Colson's expression was one of stone as he watched the scene. The alien stretched out a long silence before responding.

"VeRY weLL... But AnY TRicks aND you wILL Be deSTRoyed!"

"I'm sure we can lend a hand. The Protector is at your disposal."

The display cut out and Jason turned slowly to Colson and just waved at the blank screen.

"Well, we're not dead. Care to take it from here Colson?"

The General glared at him for a few seconds, then strode over to him, coming inches from his face.

"You can cheat and rig up all the simulations you want Nesmith. If you want to prove you can handle this ship better than me you're gonna have to do way better than that! If an enemy force hits us like that we..."

"But they didn't hit us. You struck them. Without warning, the moment they appeared." Jason said fiercely, staring Colson down. "What you don't get is that not every incident will end in a battle. You've got to be prepared to fight, but don't assume the first response it to go in guns blazing."

"This is a damned simulated battle you moron!"

Jason clenched his eyes shut for a second.

"No. It's a simulated ENCOUNTER. Like I said, not all encounters are violent. Did you pay any attention to the encounter description?"

Colson stood there for a few more seconds, glaring, then without another word stomped out of the room. Gwen shuddered.

"Nice try Jason, but I don't think you're going to get through to him."

"If I don't we'll have a hell of a time up there!" He said.


	6. Chapter 6

"OK, tell me again Andre. What did you do?" Gwen said, arms crossed and glaring at the programmer.

"It was just a simple iterative self test." The Frenchman said simply, shrugging. "After I found some Pascal code in the database, it seemed that the primary databus would accept the sequencing, as long as the whole parsing was done locally, with some issues with meta states and..."

Hands slapped on the table as Gwen leaned over, glaring harder.

"OK, try one more time. In plain English. WHAT DID YOU DO?"

Andre gulped, fingering his collar.

"Ah, oui, but of course Gwen." He said and licked his lips. "I attempted to load a pascal code that... um well, should have gone through and found any errors in the computer and corrected them, yes?"

"And this is why the system has been goofy these last two weeks? I thought back then that you said it didn't work? That the computer didn't even run the commands."

"I thought it did not! It was only this morning I figured out it had. The stupid computer seemed to parse it fine, but the whole subarray fed back an non-iterative error. I thought it had misread the primary..."

"Can it Andre!" She interrupted again, shaking her head. "So, how can we fix this? We're getting random errors throughout the Command Section on almost everything. Can you restore it to normal?"

Andre gulped once more, looking sheepishly at the console.

"Ahhh. Maybe. I'll have to isolate any backups the system might have and find the best one to re-upload. Would that be OK Gwen?"

She glared back at him as he shrank into his seat and let him sweat a few seconds.

"Maybe. Be sure you don't screw up again and load up a faulty backup Andre!"

He nodded emphatically, starting to smile once more, if still a bit nervously as she turned and strode out of the chamber. She didn't catch the puppy dog expression as he followed her out of the room.

"Ah, she is a tough nut to crack, true, but I will 'ave her!" Andre said, then took a deep breath and turned to his keyboard. "But first, business!" and began typing at a furious pace.

* * *

As Gwen walked down the corridor she tried to relax. Andre was seriously beginning to annoy her. Not only was the guy over confident in his own skill with computers, but he seemed totally fixated on her. If he had an ounce of charisma she might have considered it, but as it was he was a self obsessed, annoying jerk, focused on his own...

Gwen stopped, blinked, then burst out laughing.

Oh Jason certainly wouldn't appreciate being compared to Andre! She'd have to make sure not to let that realization slip out.

Sudden rapid sounds of gunfire and explosions made Gwen spin, searching for danger. After the panic last year on the alien ship weapons fire was something she had grown to hate. Even sound effects while on the stage filming the show!

"Nyet!" Came a rather loud Russian voice. "Hold it steady! It pulls up, force it back down as you fire."

Another staccato burst of gunfire followed by another series of explosions and yet another disgusted Russian expletive.

"Gah, I can't work with this! You are no soldier!"

A door burst open and Lyudmila stormed out, scowl on her face and holding a smoking machine pistol. Shortly afterwards Guy ran after her, almost running into Gwen. He quickly apologized then ran after Lyudmila once more.

"Hey, look, I can shoot just fine. Give me a chance! Look, the Ion pistols are perfect for..."

"Nyet! I do not shoot silly toy guns!" she said as she stormed out of sight, Guy tagging behind.

"Oh we are pulling together so well, aren't we?" Gwen muttered to herself.

Glancing at the wall were a panel was she spoke up again.

"Computer, time to launch window for Protector Three?"

"Launch window for Protector Three is in five days, ten hours, fifty seven minutes and twelve seconds."

"Thanks computer, and don't let Andre mess you up too bad this time!"

"Statement not understood. Please rephrase the command."

Sighing Gwen headed off once more.

* * *

It was seven AM, four days before lift off, and six tired actors trudged into the cafeteria.

"*Yaaaawwwn* Oh, morning Fred." Jason managed. "What time did you get to sleep last night?"

Fred blinked, seemingly the only one there looking somewhat with it.

"Um, I dunno. Usual." He said, then squinted, staring off into the distance for a moment. "I guess, two or three."

Jason stared at him and grimmaced as Fred went to sit down at the table. There were some people who were just annoyingly chipper all the time.

"Oh god, tell me we don't have another group session with Colson today?" Alex moaned, sipping his coffee.

Jason remembered yesterday's 'simulation'.

"I think they're scheduled but I'm not sure he'll be present for them."

"Here's hoping!" Alex murmured.

Gwen shook her head, glancing around the table.

"Has anyone thought what we're actually going to say to Malthazar when we meet him again? 'Oh, hi Malthazar. You remember us, from the National Space Exploration Administration, those guys with the ultra advanced technology you copied. Well we'd like to examine your technology... Oh, why? Oh, no reason.' "

"Share Gwen, share technology." Jason said, taking a sip of his own coffee. "There's a difference. Besides, I'm sure Obidia has something figured out."

"Uh, you sure on that?" Tommy said, leaning his elbows on the table. " 'Cos I don't get that impression. I think he hauled us in here 'cos we know Malthazar. I don't think he has a clue what to do when we meet."

"Wouldn't surprise me." Alex muttered.

"Guys, guys! Come on!" Jason said, attempting to get a little more animated, and only partly succeeding. "He's come through for us so far, right? We just have to trust him."

Everyone at the table, even Fred, stared at Jason.

"OK. Look I know things are a little weird." Alex snorted but Jason attempted to ignore him. "We just have to give him a chance."

Gwen shook her head.

"And I think we should still plan what we're going to say to Malthazar. No offence Jason, but I'm not impressed so far with the diplomacy skill we've seen in this Foundation."

Jason remembered Colson's idea of diplomacy and sighed.

"I... maybe. But they have a ton of experience with aliens that we don't. Over a century."

"And most of that was blowing them up." Guy muttered, fingering a black eye. "Or hitting them with something big."

Jason opened his mouth to ask what the black eye was about, then paused and thought better of it. Guy did not look to be in the mood to talk about it.

"Look, they've got the reactor in position down there, I understand the hull will be ready by tonight, we just have to keep supplying the components they need and we'll be ready to go."

"Which is why I think we need to think of what we're going to say." Gwen repeated. "It doesn't sound like Malthazar wants to stay in this neighborhood Jason. To be honest I don't think I blame him. Sarris, those Sval guys. It doesn't sound too friendly around here. We're going to have to think of something to make him stick around long enough for the Foundation to talk to them."

about three quarters of the way through Gwen's speech Jason started staring off into space.

"Yeah, the Foundation." He muttered. "That could work."

Idly, with most around the table staring at him, he stood up, fingering his coffee and headed out of the room.

"Jason? Jason!" Gwen said, then sighed as he completely ignored her. "Great now he's losing it!"

"Nah, he's just got an idea." Fred said and started munching on a donut. "Hey, anyone seen where they keep the Bacon?"

Gwen just rolled her eyes and got up herself. She just hoped Jason's idea wasn't too goofy!

* * *

Sometimes battle _was_ necessary...

"Madison, check the armor regeneration. Lazarus. focus generation to rear. Laredo, think you can weave us around?"

"Sure thing Jason." Tommy said, not noticing Jason's wince at not calling him my his NSEA name.

The ship shuddered again as multiple hits struck the rear armor. To the back of the bridge General Colson smiled, seeing things deteriorate as the ship fought multiple, powerful vessels.

"They're trying to find our armor frequency Commander." Alex said, not moving his eyes from his console.

Jason clicked his comms on from the arm rest controls while talking back to Alex.

"Keep it shifting as much as you can." Then he leaned down to his comms. "Chen, think you can digitize a Lancer right in their path? Maybe one directly in front of each ship?"

"Uh, probably, but only one per ship." Fred answered from the newly built engineering room.

"I know. It'll be enough. Tommy, when he's ready, flip us around and open up with everything you have at the lead vessel, then punch it at Mark five right through them. If we can take one out and distract the rest maybe it'll give us a chance."

"Just like episode twelve, year 2? Sure, I got it!"

Jason rolled his eyes. That kid wasn't going to stay in character was he?

"Rear armor at critical." The computer intoned.

"Peter." Gwen said, actually getting Jason's name right, though she probably should have said 'Commander'. "When we flip the ship around, all the armor power..."

"I know, I know. Lazarus get ready to switch regeneration from rear to front."

The ship swerved under Tommy's guidance, dodging back and forth, but still they were hit again and again, the rear armor down to fifteen percent while Jason watched them slowly open the distance up between them and their pursuers. Jason knew they didn't have enough time to out run them, but as long as they could get enough of a lead to be able to pull off the maneuver... There!

"Hit it Laredo! Lazarus?"

"On it Commander."

On the viewscreen stars swirled and shifted as the ship swung around to point back at the ships behind them. Four glaring green dots spat blue fire at them as they accelerated towards them. Some hits struck the fore armor, but Alex had already strengthened it from the reserves and it held.

"Now Chen!"

After a brief pause four bright explosions appeared in front of each ship and they swerved suddenly. Blue and red streams shot from the Protector, spirals of light that tightly homed in on the ship directly ahead of them as it reeled from a direct impact. More lancers spat from the tubes, but enemy defences shot them down before they struck their targets. Another random explosion erupted from one of the distant ships with no warning, then Chen spoke on the comms.

"Sorry commander. Tried a second time, seems they're jamming the digitizing frequencies. Can't try that again."

"You gave us an opening Chen, that's enough." Jason said back as they plowed towards the dodging enemy ship. "Laredo, keep it up."

They screamed in, dots of vessels becoming recognisable shapes on the screen.

"He's weakening." Alex said, then on the screen, as they looked like they'd almost ram it, the ship ahead of them exploded in bright technicolor blossoms."Yes! He's down, the others are turning though."

"Max speed Laredo! Get us out of range of the planet fast! Lazarus, get the Time Knot drive warmed up."

"Already on it Commander."

Then explosions happened, the bridge lurched and the view screen tumbled.

"Warning, rear hull compromised," the computer intoned calmly, "lateral arrays destroyed. Section E, F and G exposed to vacuum. Primary thrusters disabled, main sensors are... Ship destroyed."

The shaking suddenly stopped and the view screen went blank.

"Damn it! we..." Suddenly Jason closed his eyes and shook his head. "Ah, the armor. We never switched the armor to the rear again!"

Alex raised an eyebrow. Jason had said 'we', not 'Alex' or 'Lazarus'. He got a faint smile before a slow clapping started.

"Well done, well done. Completely destroyed the ship. Couldn't have done it better myself." Colson said sarcastically. "I suppose it could have been worse, you could have rammed them."

"Hey, we did better than you did 'General'!" Gwen said bitterly. "At least we took a quarter of the force out and severely damaged the others."

" 'Nearly' doesn't cut it in combat Miss DeMarco." He said, barely even glancing at her. "Look, 'Commander', this is all well and good but I think your time would be better spent getting this ship up to speed."

Jason frowned, turning in the chair to stare at him.

"What are you talking about? I thought these sessions were your idea?"

"Hell no! Why the hell would I want you guys to waste time on playing games? I'd much rather you got the reclamators working faster and relating your experiences to your... assistants."

Silence reigned in the room for a few seconds before Colson sighed and turned, heading for the door.

"Well, as fun as this is I have to get back to work. Enjoy blowing yourselves up again." he said, then the door slid shut behind him.

"Jerk!" Gwen spat out.

"Maybe, but if these simulations weren't his idea then whose?" Jason said.

"Obby's, gotta be." Tommy said as he stretched.

"I guess." Jason said, then spun around in the chair. "Still, we nearly pulled it off. I really think with a bit more experience we can get it right."

"So." Alex said slowly. "I take it you want to run that scenario once more?"

"No. No point in running the same thing over and over. I want us to learn to come together as a team, improvise and improve our tactics. Set us up something random Dr Lazarus."

Alex groaned at the use of his screen name, but not as heavily as he had done. For some reason the name didn't sound quite as silly as it used to.


End file.
